Council Sets Aside $18.4M For Various Improvements Projects

ROUND ROCK, TX -- City Council members have approved setting aside $18.4 million in transportation funds for various infrastructure improvements.

Council approved the funds allocation at a recent regular meeting. The money will be used to finance road extensions, traffic signals and downtown improvements under the city’s Transportation Capital Improvements Program, the Austin American-Statesman reports.

The funds are derived from a half-cent city sales tax. The projects being targeted are:

• Texas 45 frontage roads. Half-a-million dollars will go to this effort centered on closing a frontage road gap on Texas 45 between Donnell Drive in Round Rock and Heatherwilde Boulevard in Plfugerville. City Transportation Gary Hudder told the Statesman the project is expected to improve traffic congestion in Pflugerville.
• Gattis School extension design. An allotment of $1 million is reserved for this project as city officials seek to develop a corridor study centering on the school. An additional $482,439 expenditure was approved to fund a related engineering project
• Kenney Fort Boulevard extensions. Some $1.5 million has been set aside for designing two segments of Kenney Fort Boulevard, extending the roadway beyond its current ending point at Forest Creek Drive to Gattis School Road. The project would extend the artery from Gattis School to Texas 45.
• Southwest downtown phase 5B. A $5.1 allocation was earmarked for a phase of a southwest downtown project. Another $1.2 million in pedestrian funding was secured from the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization for sidewalk improvements.
• McNeil/Bagdad extension. Roughly $7.5 million will be used to align McNeil from west of Mays Street to Bagdad Avenue to Georgetown Street, where the roads will link.
• Kenney Fort right of way. Some $750,000 will be used to secure right of way for future road construction intended to expand the roadway from its current end at Joe Dimaggio Boulevard to Old Settlers Boulevard.

In addition to those projects, another $1 million apiece will fund future traffic signal construction and for a program adding turn lanes and city intersection improvements to relieve bottlenecks.